Hydrocarbon river flows across Saturn’s moon Titan

And it empties into a methane/ethane sea.

Although it hasn't (and almost certainly won't) reach Voyager-level durability, the joint NASA/ESA Cassini mission has now been in space since 1997, orbiting Saturn for over eight years. The extended mission has allowed the spacecraft to get different perspectives on the planet and its many moons, as well as track features that change over time. As a result, it continues finding new things.

The latest was announced by the ESA yesterday: a 400km long river that flows into a hydrocarbon sea. Titan is cold enough that water remains frozen but warm enough that some simple hydrocarbons—ethane and methane—can remain liquid on its surface. We've previously identified lakes, small rivers, and large liquid seas on the surface of the moon, but we've not gotten these sorts of high-quality images of a large river system before.

The river shows features that wouldn't look out-of-place on Earth, such as branches and meanders. But ESA scientists suggest that large, relatively straight sections suggest the liquids may be following a fault on Titan's surface. Although there's no confirmed tectonic activity on the moon, the current plan is to continue the Cassini mission through 2017. That will give it plenty of additional chances to search for further evidence of faults on Titan's surface. (Cassini's mission will end when it's sent to burn up in Saturn's atmosphere, in order to prevent contamination of the moons.)

It's time for Obama to end his obstruction of the Titan Interplanetary Pipeline. It's about creating spacejobs, people!!

After we successfully lasso an asteroid and mine it for rare minerals, adding a second moon to tap for combustible fuel is next on the list.

If we had space vessels big enough to transport large quantities of combustible fuel from Titan to Earth, couldn't we just use whatever power source the space vessels are using instead and get rid of fossil fuels for good?

It's time for Obama to end his obstruction of the Titan Interplanetary Pipeline. It's about creating spacejobs, people!!

After we successfully lasso an asteroid and mine it for rare minerals, adding a second moon to tap for combustible fuel is next on the list.

Technically, the Moon is a gigantor dwarf planet-thing. Though the rare materials to be mined, not so sure....

My understanding about Lunar mineral composition is that the Moon as very little in the way of heavier metals, mostly light stuff like silicates and so on. I could be wrong about that, as I can't get to Wikipedia at the moment to verify, but that's my understanding about it.

I don't think anyone would take those odds, not because they'd give a damn about your sad arse carcass, it's the billions worth of hardware it'd have to be riding. People we have plenty of, interplanetary spaceships we're very short of...

Oh god. So we indeed could have landed Huygens into a liquid then?I remember when we in Europe started to develop the lander part, the spec that it should float on a liquid methane sea was quickly removed (after all, the Huygens mission was only to enter and descend slowly, the relaying Cassini orbiter soon disappearing behind the horizon after landing).But still we had prepared some kind of a life-jacket initially, and also many people did calculations as how the still-parachute-suspended beast would perform when splashing in presence of wind (a young scientist demonstrated we would have detected this)...Good old times ;-)

It's time for Obama to end his obstruction of the Titan Interplanetary Pipeline. It's about creating spacejobs, people!!

After we successfully lasso an asteroid and mine it for rare minerals, adding a second moon to tap for combustible fuel is next on the list.

There's a better "gas station" a lot closer. Look at Jupiter. Should be possible to refuel there by simply diving through the upper edges of the atmosphere and tanking what you get. Separating the gases with vacuum and freezing distillation, should be easy with plenty of space to do it in. The method would be a mathematical ballet balancing gravity, atmospheric drag and thrust efficiencies. Good EMF shielding would also be needed to keep from frying the electronics.

On the asteroid business, until Planetary Resources develops a business plan and offers an IPO, there isn't going to be a "we". They are focused on the profit.

It'd be interesting to see how rivers flow there since the gravity is so low compared to Earth. They obviously follow the same patterns they do here, so how does the lighter molecular weight of liquid methane compared to liquid water alter it's behavior as it flows? The air pressure at sea level is higher on Titan than Earth so does that change it's behavior too, making it more "water-like"? As said above, Titan is the most fascinating moon in the solar system. In fact I'd say outside of Earth it's probably the most fascinating body in the solar system.

I can't help thinking about matches when reading about these methane rivers (oh, that silent pyromaniac in me). Not sure if it would work, though, as at least on Earth, oxygen initially was created by simple living organisms like bacterias and algaes, so it's possible that there's no oxygen on Titan.

It's time for Obama to end his obstruction of the Titan Interplanetary Pipeline. It's about creating spacejobs, people!!

After we successfully lasso an asteroid and mine it for rare minerals, adding a second moon to tap for combustible fuel is next on the list.

Technically, the Moon is a gigantor dwarf planet-thing. Though the rare materials to be mined, not so sure....

I don't know about the moon, compared to the but by asteroid standards, the Earth's crust is impoverished in gold, platinum etc. Most of that stuff sank into the core long, long ago (along with much vaster amounts of iron.)